


The Templar and His Champion

by tersa (alix)



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age II
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Implied Relationships, Rare Pairing, Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:19:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alix/pseuds/tersa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen's weak spot seems to be Amell women, and when look-a-like warrior Marian Hawke crosses his path, he finds himself caught up in her life despite himself and all the vows he holds dear.</p><p>Covers the entire arc of the game from Cullen's POV, until shortly after the post-game events with a Viscount Hawke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Templar and His Champion

She walked out of Cullen’s past, a tall woman with raven-black hair and brilliant blue eyes that sent a burst of panic through his chest. But, no, she was not Solona, with sword sheathed and shield slung across her back, approaching him on the hills outside of Kirkwall.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he answered.

But he wasn’t.

Marian.

He had never noticed her before, but then he saw her everywhere. She found Keran, told the story of blood mages taking him, and he’d had no choice but to dismiss him from the order. She met with Ser Emrys, humoring him with his obsession investigating missing women. She knew Ser Thrask, and Ser Karras found her rooting out a nest of maleficars from Starkhaven. Every week, it seemed, she was at the Gallows on one errand or another, until he found himself looking forward to those times.

Until they took her sister. Disappointment crushed him when he found Marian had been harboring an apostate, and he dragged Bethany out of their home in Lowtown. She came, several days later, to visit her sister, but sought him out afterwards. He regarded her coolly, conveying his displeasure, but she pierced his defenses with her words.

“Thank you.”

The relief in her voice was palpable, and it threw him out of his disdain. “For what?”

“My father made us promise to keep her from here. My mother made me promise to keep her safe. I couldn’t honor both of them.” She told him, then, of her harrowing journey to the Deep Roads, of the dwarf’s betrayal and her encounter with the powerful demon under the earth.

But more, she made him care for someone outside the templars for the first time since...her.

Of course, she was an Amell. The story broke after her return, the news buzzing through Kirkwall and the Gallows, and so he learned of how the family had once been not just respected, but close to the Viscounty itself, until the taint of magic had touched their children, toppling them from grace. The Order was supposed to be immune to politics, but her ascent gave even the Knight-Commander pause, sparing Bethany from the Rite of Tranquility.

Despite her newfound status as nobility, she came to the Gallows more frequently then ever. At first, to see Bethany, allowed despite the rules to keep the mages from their families. Later, she lingered to see him, asking about his calling. She began training in swordplay with the recruits, fast outstripping them then pitting herself against the full templars, until only Cullen could hold his own against her. She laughed and teased and taunted him around the practice square, until they were both sweaty and worn out, sated.

The Knight-Commander observed and drew him aside with disapproval. “You spend too much time with this woman.”

Offense stung. “She is one of the faithful, a defender of our cause, and a skilled swordswoman doing good works in this town. She is well-respected, and her attention reflects well on the order. My responsibilities do not suffer.”

Meredith had flared her nostrils, giving him a cold look, and said, “See that they do not.”

Deep in the night, her words gnawed at his heart. But each day she came, lightness came into it, and he smiled with pleasure to see her.

Until the time she arrived, eyes rimmed red and face pale, and asked to speak with Bethany in a voice so grave, ice chilled his blood. “Someone should be there with me for this,” she’d said. He escorted her to her sister himself, so was able to quell the backlash of grief when Marian told her of their mother’s death at the hands of a maleficar, knocking Bethany senseless before she could harm Marian. Two templars carried Bethany off, and he guided the ashen Marian to a corner of the courtyard, stripping off his gauntlets and taking her hands in his. They were cold, so cold, that he squeezed, trying to warm them, and the words came out of her, of Gascard DuPuis, a _noble_ hiding his magic from everyone, of the other, Quentin, kidnapping and murdering women to re-create his dead wife, and her mother’s misfortune of resemblance. The tears began when she described Leandra’s mutiliated corpse, her profane mockery of life, and the pain in his heart became unbearable. He spread his arms to her, and despite bloody sword and breastplate, she went to them, crying herself out on his shoulder.

Bloodshot eyes and runny nose and mottled skin, he had never seen anyone so beautiful.

She rose in esteem, both amongst the templars in the Gallows and the people of Kirkwall. She informed them of an apostate they’d heard rumors of, a Grey Warden, nominally outside their jurisdiction by long treaty with that order, who had lost what little trust she’d had in him when he had revealed himself an abomination. Then when matters with the qunari ignited the city into flames, it was she and her companions who quelled the uprising, stepping in where the weak-willed Viscount Dumar had failed. He had heard that story after the fact, from templars who had a sister who had a friend that worked in one of the estates of the nobles who had been there, of how she’d challenged the qunari arishok to a duel and defeated him, and sent one of her own companions back with the rest.

He’d asked her about it, the next time she’d come to the Gallows. She’d gone very quiet at his question. “She betrayed my trust,” she finally said, the beginning and end of explanation.

As tensions in Kirkwall escalated in the absence of a Viscount, tensions of a different sort rose between them. He dreamt of her, part fantasy, part nightmare, as Marian tangled with Solona and long buried memories of that time in the Tower of Ferelden welled up, echoes of torture the demons flayed his mind with. He pushed her away, recognizing the temptation that haunted him, but she was there, always coming there, and he found himself in her presence, as if unconsciously, drinking her in. She didn’t laugh anymore, rarely smiled, but her eyes warmed when she saw him.

Then she came.

He didn’t know she would be there. The Knight-Commander had caught wind that the King of Ferelden was in Kirkwall, and Meredith had not been notified. She stormed into the Viscount’s Palace, Cullen and a squad of templars in tow, to confront him, and Cullen had stopped in his tracks when he noticed the King’s retinue. The resemblance punched him in the chest once more. This time, he could note the differences. Deep blue robes trimmed in silver thread brought out the blue of her eyes, but while Marian’s were vibrant, Solona’s were faded. Her face was unlined, pale, while Marian’s crinkled at the corners, her skin dusky from training in the courtyard. Her figure slight, to Marian’s solid presence.

Her eyes widened when she saw him, but said nothing, as Meredith snarled and snapped and Alistair--he couldn’t think of him as ‘King Alistair, not after living cheek by jowl with the bastard boy of a maid from Redcliffe as recruits--deflected her rage with casual humor.

He saw Solona touch Alistair’s arm, and Cullen knew.

Marian’s arrival brought with it the crackle of a lightning bolt. She’d come, Alistair said, on his behest, blunting Meredith’s objections. Solona, he noted, startled to come face to face with her kinswoman; Marian paused in her perusal of Alistair’s party to note her, nodding coolly but turned to the King. Effectively dismissed, Meredith left in a huff, Cullen required to attend her. He missed what was said, what exchanges they might have made.

It was nighttime when Solona came to the Gallows, word sent to him in his chambers. He went to where she stood alone in the Courtyard, but more full brothers than would be usual for that time of night ringed the square in casual conversation that fooled neither him nor her.

“Cullen,” she breathed with a smile.

“Lady Chancellor,” he said with a shallow bow. “Or do you prefer Warden-Commander?”

“I prefer Solona, to my old friends,” she said with an airy laugh.

Soberly, he met her eyes and said, “We were never friends.”

It struck her like a blow, and she staggered back a step. “I thought...”

“I am grateful for what you did that day in the Tower,” he said, filling the gap as she trailed off. “You had other concerns at that time, with the Blight, and I would surely have been lost if you hadn’t come when you did. I behaved very badly to you, afterwards, for which I apologize.”

“There’s no need,” she said, stepping closer. “When I saw what they had done to you...”

Memories assaulted him, and he took a step away. “The demons exploited my weakness, a foolish soft spot I should never have allowed to exist for one of my charges.”

Her eyes shuttered at the firmness of his tone, her head bowed. “Charges...yes.” Her chin lifted. “Thank you for taking the time to see me, Knight-Captain.”

“Of course, Lady Chancellor.”

That night, he slept deeply, the first time in years, and when he dreamt of Marian, they were no nightmares.

When Bethany disappeared from the Tower, Meredith’s wrath was terrible, but guilt over losing Marian’s sister devoured him more effectively. Mages and templars alike had disappeared, but Cullen wished most to find her.

Marian found her first, her and the missing mages and templars. Samson stumbled on Cullen and his squad searching outside of Kirkwall and led him to where they were at, only for Cullen to discover the rogue mages and templars dead, including Ser Thrask. Marian was hugging Bethany, blood dappling her face, and when she turned to look at him, the narrowed eyed glance of suspicion took him aback. He felt as if he’d failed her.

But she’d come to the Gallows later that evening, after Vespers. The sun faded in shades of rose and peach in the evening sky, and they sat on the stairs leading up to the barracks. It was the first time he’d seen her without her armor, dressed in clothes befitting her title as Champion, making plain the curves at breast and hip, and he found himself longing to touch her. “You look nice tonight,” he’d said, as tongue-tied as a new recruit.

She sniffed. “I don’t go around in armor all the time. I decided to make this a social call.”

He blurted out, “I’m sorry.”

She tilted her head to look at him askance. “For what?”

“For letting them take Bethany.”

She’d reached out to cover his hand, fingers folding down to squeeze, but then lingered. Warmth had crept up his arm. “You couldn’t have known,” she said. “I don’t hold you responsible for the actions of those under you. You couldn’t have known they would do something that extreme. Their mistake was in trying to cross me. And I’ve made them pay.” Her grip had tightened with the flat anger in her voice, and he’d grasped her hand hard in return, until she’d looked over at him and smiled. His heart hurt.

The day the world went insane, he was in the Gallows. The Knight-Commander had left him charge while she went after Orsino, determined to call on the Grand Cleric, when the sky above the mountaintop turned bloody crimson, the earth rocking, and a percussive blast of magic rolled through, so strong every templar from Kirkwall to Val Royeux had likely felt it. Quickly, he ordered the men and mages to readiness, then waited for word, standing on the parapets, and watched the city burn. Fingers curled around the stone wall. He felt a pang of guilt to realize it was Marian, not Meredith, to whom his concern had gone to first. And then Meredith faded from his mind, as thoughts of Marian consumed him.

Meredith returned. A mage had destroyed the Chantry, Grand Cleric Elthina and all within dead. The order would be performing the Right of Annulment on all the mages of the Tower, with the Champion’s help.

Marian was alive. She was coming.

There was no time for the hope that sang in his heart. Orders must be issued, the men readied, until the Knight-Commander led them into the courtyard.

She was there.

The First Enchanter was as well, confronting her, until Meredith stepped up. He pleaded with her for sanity, but she refused. Marian tried to speak for peace, but she refused.

Doubt niggled at him. He remembered Gregoir, swept back to his time at the Tower of Ferelden, how even when abominations ran rampant in the corridors, the Right had not been invoked, some mages saved.

Meredith would brook no compromise.

Maybe Thrask had been right.

They entered the Tower, and it was bloody. The mages defended their lives, fought with all the magics they could bring to bear to save themselves, and they died.

Until a group came upon Marian and threw themselves at her feet, begging for mercy--a mercy Meredith wished to deny. He spoke up, asking her to temper her reaction, but she cut him off, until the mages pleaded and Marian’s blue eyes met with his. “I want to hear what the Knight-Captain has to say.”

She was counting on him, and he wouldn’t--couldn’t--disappoint her. “The Right has always been a last resort, when every mage involved was beyond salvation. The situation was far more dire in Ferelden’s Circle, and yet many mages were saved.” Solona--Solona had argued with him that they were worth saving, when he had been half-mad. She had been right...in that. Her cousin stood before him now, searching for the same salvation, and he added, “We could still do as much here.”

Meredith wouldn’t listen. Marian refused to back down, and he was left with having to choose, between his commander and her. When he said, “Heed the Champion,” his fate was sealed.

He chose the path of mercy, the path Solona had put him on, the path Marian walked now.

So when Orsino was dead, Meredith ordering they kill Marian and her companions, there was no choice to be made. He put himself before her, sword drawn and raised against Meredith. “You’ll have to go through me.”

The Champion won, and he was the first to drop his knee to her, face bowed to hide from all the rest the love threatening to burst his heart.

When it was over, the templars rounding up the other mages who surrendered, she drew him aside, and when she pulled off one of her gauntlets, he did the same, clasping hands. Her skin was warm, pulse fluttery under his fingers as she said softly, “Put your house in order, Knight-Commander. I must return to the city to do the same.”

“Champion,” he breathed, both acknowledgement and benediction.

It was seven days until he felt he could step away for a short time without the world ending again. It had been a hard time quelling the mages in the Tower, templars doing double patrols with the city guard to hunt down runaways. For the first evening since it had all begun, he felt it quiet enough to enter the city, not on business, but to seek her out.

He called on her at her home, only to find that refugees filled it, and he was directed to the Viscount’s Castle, damaged but still functional. There, he saw the faces of the horror the apostate had wrought, the men, women, and children filling every square of floor. Seneschal Bran spied him picking his way through the crowd and directed him to the Viscount’s rooms.

Her head slumped on a hand bridged across her forehead, elbow resting on a table serving as a desk. Her face rose at the sound of his entrance. “Cullen,” she sighed, and his chest tightened with the gladness he saw in her expression, amidst the dark circles and the exhaustion “What are you doing here? And not in your armor?” she added with mild alarm.

“I came to see how you were. I didn’t feel full armor was appropriate for a social call.”

Her smile was like the sun after a storm. She rose to her feet and circled around the desk, and he found himself spreading his arms to enfold her when she walked into them. No sword, and no breastplate, she was warm and alive, and his body sang on a single note. At a time when the world was upside down, the Chantry destroyed like a children’s toy and he had defied and deposed his Commander, what was one more, smaller transgression? So when she tilted her head back, blue eyes half-lidded behind smoky lashes, he fell into her kiss without thought.

Light filled him and he was lost, returning the kiss with a purity of purpose that left no room for anything else. There was joy in it, and celebration for being alive, for surviving, in the most primitive form of expression. His hands touched her body, her hands touched his, and he was melting. Fingers plucked at his clothing, white tabard with red sword tossed to the floor with his vows, until he stood naked as she bared herself, white skin and scars to explore and touch as he knelt at her feet and buried his face in her belly. Her hands rested on his head, like a blessing, and he rose, gathering her in his arms and allowing her to lead him to the bed.

It was hardly any time until he was ready, so much did he want her. Gently, she took his manhood in her hands, and a small spurt escaped him, anticipation a pressure on the cusp of explosion. She guided him to her well and sheathed him and it came, release tearing a guttural cry from him, pleasure so powerful it bordered on pain. Tears fell in the aftermath, his head bowed onto her shoulder, and she cradled him with arms and legs. “Are you okay?” she murmured, voice husky.

“Yes,” was all he managed, for how do you put words to the healing of your soul?

He stayed there for a time, but when he made to move from her, her hands on his head tightened, and she met his eyes. “Stay,” she asked.

He did.

She kissed him, and desire rose, not with the bonfire of before but a slow burn, the warmth in the hearth on a cold, winter night. They moved with languor, exploring each other’s body, and she taught him of herself, the tickle of breath across the shell of her ear, the lingering path traced down throat and chest, how to take the nipple into his mouth, strong hard sucks, the gentle ones, and of the mysteries of her sex, the petal-like folds that opened when she parted her knees, the hard bud high in the slit and the arousal it brought her, the deepness where fingers would suffice as well. And when her breath came in high pitched pants, she begged, calling his name, and he filled her. Her inner walls enclosed him, caressed him, and her hips thrust madly, beyond herself, and when she cried out, ecstasy crested within him and he peaked, spending himself again, feeling as he’d always imagined it would be to be blessed by the Maker.

How long he lay in her embrace, he did not know, but move away he must. Her hands reached out to him until he withdrew, conveying her reluctance, but she allowed him, rising to don a simple tunic to cover herself with while he dressed. She met him at the door, wrapping arms around the nape of his neck to pull him down to a kiss he willingly shared.

He departed without words, with a final kiss of the palm of one callused hand, a promise. He was hers.


End file.
